Rural white voters....

I'm white and I grew up in the rural areas of our Country.

I don't understand what has the folks of my childhood so pissed off at the government, the Democratic party, and the whole damn world it seems.

Many of these voters do not have any higher education so their jobs bring menial wages. This was a path choice. Many shop at Walmart. where they claim employee abuse of social welfare handouts is rampant. But they still shop there. That's a choice. They're fed up with government interfering in their lives and yet they count on social security for retirement, they take government subsidies for their crops. They drive on county roads built and maintained by the government. They place their money in the trust of banks where their deposits are secured by the government. Their lives are surrounded by programs and laws and incentives produced and maintained by the VERY government they seem to hate so vehemently. Are they starving? Are they being persecuted? Is the government knocking on their doors and taking away their firearms? Are they being denied opportunities that are due them? The answer to all these question is undeniably NO.

What am I missing here? A fellow rural dweller is puzzled.

I can understand a resentment toward  the one percent that controls all the wealth. Then why elect a man who is part of that one percent? A man who has taken advantage of tax breaks for the wealthy and multiple bankruptcies for unsuccessful adventures? That's a government program, by the way. Do they abhor lobbyists and deep pocket donors that are looking for givebacks from their elected officials? Do they believe this man who has run riot on the commercial real estate industry, who has stiffed hundreds of workers on his projects, who has threatened to bully and sue anyone who says or does anything that doesn't suit his mood - do these kind, hardworking rural white folks really believe this billionaire who has deliberately insulted every minority group in the world, is going to get out of his Mercedes, listen to their woes of poor me, poor me, and then with the empathy of Mother Theresa, pull a magic rabbit out of his hat and fix all their problems?

HELLO? HELLO? Is there any common sense out there in the cornfields of the Midwest? This man couldn't care less whether you have a job, or food on the table, or the possibility of going to school to better yourself. He has never lived like you. He has never seen it, felt it, and certainly has no idea how to better it. He has proved he can better only one thing. Himself. That's the ONLY person he has ever thought of and that's not likely to change, folks.

If you are a woman, or a mother, or a proclaimed Christian, or someone who tries not to be prejudiced against everyone who is different than yourself - if you are one of these and you cast a vote for Trump - you voted for hate. He incited it. He encouraged it. He participated in it. The sadness and disappointment that has descended upon our country is not about politics or party. The sorrow is about selling out on our country's values. The principles the country was founded on and the ones that have made us a leader among nations and one of the most admired populations in the world. We've sold those values and we sold them at Walmart prices to a con man.

Rural and white doesn't mean you have to be ignorant and narrow-sighted. Those are not Midwest values. At least not the ones I grew up with in rural, white America.

Self-Love

Self-Love. Today I’m thinking the world is separated into three categories.

The first group – Those who innately experience self-love. Love of self is part of their DNA, their core belief system. They’ve never questioned if they have it, or why, because they’ve never known themselves without it. They are the blessed. Born with it. Explaining the search for self-love to this group is like describing childbirth to a male, or describing the mindset of an alcoholic to a social drinker. No words nor new pair of glasses can change the perspective when one can’t relate.

The second group – Those who don’t have it, don’t need it, and have never felt the need to seek it out. They don’t know what they don’t know. Perhaps fortunate in their lack of struggle to find an ethereal element that can’t be GPSed like the nearest Starbucks or 7-11. How did we survive before all the digital maps? In my case, all who wander are lost.

This group doesn’t wonder because they don’t feel lost. I think about a few politicians and their followers who are on the news every night. There is a difference between narcissism and self-love. Narcissism is ego driven and we witness its ugliness in every word and in each of his rallies.

And then there’s the group that I belong to. You’ll recognize us because we’re often restless, irritable, and discontent. We’re suffering from a lack of self-love. We know this kind of love exists. We see it in others, but we don’t get it. Well, some of us get it, but we don’t know how to GET it. Can’t buy it with our debit cards, can’t borrow it from someone else, Google doesn’t have the answers, and even Siri is stumped when asked about this concept.

“Self-love? I’m afraid I can’t help you with that, Lee Ann,” replies Siri.

Some in this later group never saw self-love growing up. Does a mother filled with self-love and respect stay for decades in a marriage with an abusive husband? Can a child’s love for self flourish while overcoming a father’s ridicule and verbal terrorism? Doubtful.

What is born is self-deprecation, missing self-esteem, and a negative outlook that takes daily attitude reparation and adjustment. This group may often find themselves starting their day over, because not to, would be to slide into a dark hole of depression and hopelessness.

As I walk here in Denver, Colorado, today, I am reminded that I walked this same sidewalk on a beautiful spring day last year. I remember the air was crisp and cool. The brightly shining sun warmed the soft, green spring grass. I took off my shoes and walked in the soft, emerald carpet. It was the grass of my childhood unlike the coarse weeds we call grass in Florida. Two bunnies were patient with me as I bent down and photographed them where they played under a group of evergreens. It was a beautiful moment. I was actually ‘in the moment,’ I think. But I ask myself, am I a better person than I was a year ago when I walked here? Am I in a better place? Maybe. But I also realize the elusive gift of self-love is still missing.

In my search for spirituality and peace, I have been reading about Buddhist beliefs. There’s a lot of self-love in their principles. Maybe that’s why I’m drawn to them. In contrast, being accused of sin and needing to seek forgiveness, has never done much for me. For many years, I put a dollar in the plate when it was passed, but I never found any solace in the organized gathering of believers in churches. Maybe they weren’t offering up love for oneself. Maybe that is why I still bristle at the word god when it is capitalized.

So I pledge today to my group, to my fellow self-doubters, we will find our way out. We won’t give up. We will learn. We will look inside with our hearts instead of our heads. For only between our ears, live our mistakes, regrets, and deficiencies. The void where self-love and all love should live.

Today we will treat ourselves like we treat our best friends. We will heal the child within that cries and guide the weary adult within, who starts their day over.

I will love me. I hope she loves me back. I think she will.  J